Going Viral

Good evening secret emailers

I’m writing to you from inside one of the biggest scandals this country has witnessed – recording interviews with people who lived it and those who are determined to do something about it.

Sadly, thanks to a sub-optimal approach to animal husbandry in China, this is not the biggest story in town.

To that end, I hope you are well. I hope all of us get through what has the potential to be a major crisis. I realise right now people have things on their mind other than the Post Office Horizon IT Scandal. I am acutely aware that whilst it might make for very healthy viewing figures when Panorama goes out on Monday (one upside to half the nation being asked to go into isolation), the immediate impact of the programme will be diminished, because our country’s decision-makers will, completely understandably, be dealing with more pressing problems.

In terms of its production, the Panorama is coming together, it will be good, and the team working on it all feel fine and have been keeping the requisite social distance from each other and our interviewees. We will get it made.

And you thought Brexit was a distraction

As to everything else? Well, all bets are off. There is due to be a debate in the House of Commons on Thursday entitled: “Horizon Settlement and Future Governance of Post Office Ltd”.

I know that a week ago, MPs were rallying their colleagues to try to ensure they would be there in numbers to show their concern, voice their opinions and get the ear of government.

As of right now no one knows what is going to happen on Thursday. No one is really sure what is going to happen tomorrow.

I won’t lose sight of this story in the immediate future, even if we get confined to barracks. Thanks to the generosity of secret emailers, I have stockpiled a few quid. If I get ill, told to self-isolate or the work dries up, I can spend a few days in my house banging out a LOT of content on the Post Office story for your edification.

Content provision

If you fancy a wee hors d’ouevre before next week’s Panorama, try this extraordinary morsel from BBC Wales. It is the Post Office Horizon IT Scandal done afresh, this time making full use of Noel Thomas, whose voice and turn of phrase is poetry to the ears. It also features a welcome contribution from that plain-speaking titan of the tech world, Bryan Glick, editor-in-chief of Computer Weekly, who allows his charge Karl Flinders to spend a LOT of time covering this story.

Also, if any Learned Friends reading this want to know why the law so often causes problems for Subpostmasters who have been prosecuted by the Post Office, please do get your teeth into this brand new scholarly article published by Stephen Mason in his Digital Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review. Stephen is a barrister who literally wrote the book on the presentation of electronic evidence in court, and I do hope that when future lawyers take into account Mr Justice Fraser’s findings in the Horizon trial and Mr Mason’s writings, the predilection for trusting computer evidence is properly challenged.

Tue 24 March

The day after next week’s Panorama goes out, the BEIS select committee inquiry into the Post Office is due to have its second oral hearing. Paula Vennells, former CEO of the Post Office has agreed to attend, as has Nick Read, her replacement. On the same day, the CCRC commissioners will be making a decision about the 57 people who claim their convictions at the hands of Post Office prosecutors were miscarriages of justice.

Or maybe they’ll all be sitting at home watching cartoons, quarantined by Covid-19.

I still find it hard to believe that 20 years into this story, Paula Vennells has been the biggest winner, various lawyers have trousered a few million quid between them and even I’ve managed to either crowdfund or persuade a few enlightened editors to bung me enough commission to cover the rent. Yet the one group of people who have suffered the most and so far seen absolutely nothing from it are its victims. Still.

I hope that by the time Coronavirus is a distant memory, those who deserve redress have got it, their good names are restored and, more than anything, they have received a fulsome and meaningful apology for what they were put through.

I suspect that will be some months or years off.

Incidentally if you have evidence you would like to submit to the ongoing BEIS select committee inquiry, now is the time to do it. The link is here.

If you have ANY document or experience you have had which you think reveals anything of any interest about Fujitsu, the NFSP or the Post Office AT ALL, submit it. The joy for journalists is that material submitted to a select committee inquiry tends to get published on the committee’s website, which means it is reportable. This process takes place under legal privilege [ie you can’t get sued for doing so], so there is unlikely to be any comeback on you.

Therefore, if you want to tell the story of what happened to you, or you think you can help the inquiry better understand what has been going on at the Post Office or Fujitsu or the NFSP over the last 20 years – send in your submission. It is a little-known, but incredibly important facet of our democratic system.

Go, Sid.

Finally – Chirag Sidhpura – or Sid as he is known at his former Post Office in Farncombe, Surrey has just posted the following on Facebook:

“URGENT MESSAGEwe are here for youIf you are self isolating yourself and need anything please call us and leave a message we will call you back to arrange delivery . The elderly and vulnerable will be prioritized”

Sid lost his job as Subpostmaster when a £57,000 discrepancy showed up on his Horizon system. It happened to him after the cut-off date to join the recent High Court litigation. Not knowing he was one of many people to have problems with Horizon, Sid paid the Post Office £57,000 to avoid being prosecuted.

His brother-in-law now runs the Farncombe Post Office, and Sid works there, but his commitment to his local community remains second to none. In fact, Sid was so well-loved that a customer with a keen eye for an apparent injustice called Eleanor Shaikh has become instrumental in helping Sid and many other Subpostmasters scrutinise exactly what has been going on at the Post Office in recent years. More power to them both. I hope to publish Sid’s story soon. It’s harrowing. They all are.

Be good. Take care of the people around you. But don’t hold them too close. There’s a pandemic going on.

Now. Wash Your Hands.

Cheers

Nick